LeBron James left the court without congratulating the victorious Orlando Magic and then exited the arena last night without speaking to the media, and that is so weak and graceless I can barely believe he did it.

Unless…

Since everything LBJ does is parsed and over-analyzed, and since LBJ knows that better than anybody, let’s go ahead and conclude that LeBron pre-realized that his post-game peeve-out would register heavily on the NBA Frustration Richter Scale.

Let’s figure that LeBron wanted all of us to think that he is planning his Cleveland 2010 exit. He didn’t have to say it, yet we’re all thinking it–that is the beauty of the LBJ silence, see? It’s still weak, but maybe it was advance-planned weakness.

Then LeBron can pop up in a few days or weeks, put on a smile, say he’s thrilled to remain a Cavalier (for this last year on his contract before an opt-out next summer) and we’ll still remember the silent fury of last night.

Message received, image sustained. Order up the puppet commercials for next spring.

But the Cavaliers’ front office is getting the strongest message, I’m sure.

They have to go for broke in talent-acquisition this off-season, not just to entice James to stay long-term, but because HE MIGHT LEAVE after next season no matter what, and with him will go the title chances for the near and distant future.

The New York Knicks, yes, I believe they might have a passing interest in LeBron. Theoretically

So Cleveland has one year to pick among the high-priced, low-return clutter of Antawn Jamison, Gerald Wallace, Elton Brand, Tracy McGrady, Baron Davis, Zach Randolph, Jamal Crawford and the rest.

This is because we know and LeBron knows that Zydrunas Ilgauskas and Mo Williams are not ever going to be key supplemental pieces to win a title. (But Mickael Pietrus and Marcin Gortat might be. Amazing!)

* And, to a lesser extent, an active, defensive-minded, lane-running wing to give James a rest and to play with LBJ on a faster squad (definitely not Wally Szczerbiak).

That’s a lot, but I believe Cleveland has to at least try to fill two of those needs or else LeBron is a goner in 2010 and we’ll start hearing the murmuring from his camp by this August if nothing happens to upgrade the roster.

The best way to put this is the way it has always been cast, in my head:

-If the York family is willing to commit approximately $800M of its own money or credit for a new Santa Clara stadium;

-And if the Yorks can find a way to add $200M or more through NFL loans or guaranteed seat-license or naming rights deals or all of the above;

-And if the Yorks can put a true and honest final number on the deal–believe me, it’s NOT the number they’re at now, it’s just not, and every piece of stadium history tells us that;

-And if the Yorks and the NFL and Santa Clara either FOR SURE know that the Raiders are involved as likely co-tenants or have secret knowledge that FOR SURE this deal can be done without Al Davis (not a wily-nily in between hope for Al, which never works);

-And if the York family can put a realistic timetable on the deal and not leave the city on the hook for deep over-runs or economic and ticket-selling under-performance;
-And if the Yorks and the city can negotiate a deal that they can sell to the electorate, then actually, you know, sell it;

Then, and only then, might there be a realistic shot at building a new stadium in Santa Clara.

Forward, a bit. Definitely. It’s more than they’ve done in a long time, no question, and more reasonable by a landslide.

The 49ers have presented something far more grounded in reality than the last few go-’rounds, and I do believe that Jed York is taking his last mighty swing at this, and it shows.

This isn’t a figment of anyone’s imagination. This isn’t a fool’s errand. The negotiations have apparently whittled the estimated public cost down to $114M, though that’s never really a fixed number this far away from the shovels digging into ground.

This makes the San Francisco/Hunters Point talk sort of go away. I think it’s either Santa Clara or… nowhere in the Bay Area for the 49ers at this point.

It was always about the Yorks committing themselves financially to Santa Clara. If they did that, Santa Clara was live. It wasn’t live until these last negotiations. Live, but still needing major attention and flexibility.

This is not a big development in the Flunkster Chroncles, but this little wrinkle in Warriors PR Wonder is further reinforcement of that bizarre, seething, comment-addicted cult over there.

They just cannot help themselves. They’re righteous beings, put upon by us downbeat scoundrels. Hey, I can’t complain about the comments: Helps the view-time average on all of our blogs.

Post all the comments you want, fellahs, you’re welcome here, though you may be occasionally pointed out as fringe-y cultists. The Cohan Illuminati. Just don’t put on Nikes and wear purple vestaments. At least not in public.

As suspected, it’s very possible and indeed almost certain that Flunkster Dude did not toil and type alone these last few years. This was a serial thing, I think, and may still be. (Let’s see what happens to the comment board on this item.)

FD had at least one spiritual twin who was wise enough not to use Warriors computers to post his or her anonymous comments.

Let’s be frank: It’s a big and lonely job to man-up in public (anonymously) for an owner whose only notable supporters are those he employs.

FD had support. Maybe he didn’t know he had support, but it’s also possible that he had a loyal flunky, a designated spare anonymous commenter always ready to step in to defend Chris Cohan when others wearied of typing from the Warriors own IP address, though certainly not as focused as FD.

A Flunkster No. 2. A sidekick, if only in spirit.

I always figured this to be true and Adam Lauridsen filled in the necessary blanks in a post from earlier this week which detailed several more anonymous comments from the Warriors IP address (this time on his blog) and then one that particularly got my attention.

There was one post on Adam’s blog that did NOT come from the Warriors HQ but was too suspicious in tone and content to ignore.

Adam first wrote about this comment when it posted on his site in ’07. I guess I missed it back then; thank goodness he mentioned it again, especially as I’m fairly zeroed in on the Warriors PR festivities of Flunkster Dude and all of his anonymous, Chris Cohan-loving progeny.

Adam detailed an Aug. 2007 anon-comment defending Chris Cohan’s financial commitment and Adam noted that the anonymous comment mentioned the same players in the same order as an interview a certain Warriors-tied TV Announcer did with WarriorsWorld.net at the same time.

Yes, how interesting. Thanks again to Adam for making that connection.

You are right, he must be cheap. I want so see some “actions” to prove otherwise. Adam, you are better than that.

That was not written by Raymond Ridder, no way. That was written by an angrier, even-more-culty person, someone who doesn’t work every day in the Warriors offices. But still was compelled to stand up for Chris Cohan.

The anonymous commenter’s screen name sounded familiar, and especially that last (“you are better than that“) line sounded exceedingly familiar to me, since it has been included in several e-mails I’ve received, unbidden.

I figured this familiar person had commented on my blog before. I checked and yes indeed I found a “TC Firehouse”-signed comment on my blog. Also from Aug 2007 (busy!).

Well, now that it’s all nice and quiet here, not a controversy stirring anywhere… OOPS.

Yes, I’ve just begun a long-scheduled vacation, during which many exciting things are planned that do not involve Raiders camp, A’s trades or anonymous blog postings of any kind.

(Hey, Spawn of Flunkster Dude: If you want, open territory on my blog comments for a few days! Err, maybe not.)

Believe me, I was running down info about Warriors weirdness into the last minutes of my pre-vacation, so
I realize it’s a bad time for this.

But this is the Bay Area. We’ve got a bunch of nutty, restless, foolish, newsmaking teams, who cannot help themselves, apparently. So it’s always a bad time to take a little break. Oh well.

From now until late next week, if I do anything, anything at all, about Warriors PR fun or Giants superior greatness, or if I party with JaMarcus, bump into Tiger on the fourth tee box or share quality home-confinement time with Michael V…

It will be documented onmy Twitter deal, which means, uh, I don’t really know what that means.

* 12:04 p.m. Saturday update: On Stephen Jackson’s salary figures… I thought I was clear, but I’ve had enough people ask me about this, so perhaps I was not. Important point: The numbers I’ve supplied in this item ARE the numbers that were officially submitted to the league office, period.

Again, sometimes non-guaranteed portions of any particular season don’t show up on this data base, but ALL OPTION CLAUSES do show up. Jackson’s deal does NOT include any options, according to the NBA data base. It’s a three-year extension, as per the contract filed with the league. These #’s show the salaries as they count for salary-cap purposes.

Sorry, spent most of today chasing down information about the 11 or more additional anonymous Warriors blog comments that have been identified, most of them posted to the WarriorsWorld.net fan site.

All of the newly identified comments–dating back to 2006, with a flurry in the summers of 2007 and 2008–defended the Warriors management or referred to positive things or gave out ticket information about the Warriors and all traced to the same IP address at Warriors HQ.

That’s in addition to the total of five comments that Warriors PR director Raymond Ridder last night acknowledged he wrote anonymously.

There may be many more out there: This is just 24 hours after Ridder posted as ”Flunkster Dude” on WW.net yesterday and a few hours later admitted he did it and that he posted at least four other anonymous comments.

One more comment was even posted onto my blog (it was harmless, a random thought about Elton Brand last summer); it also had the exact same IP Address as the ones Ridder confirmed he posted to the WW.net.

More details on these later.

That’s not what I wanted to write about today, but I’m being very, very rigorous with this research-question-identify process for the anonymous postings because it’s a fuzzy area and because RIdder last night was so forthright about accepting responsibility for five of the comments.

Asked directly today about the newly unearthed comments, one involving criticism of Don Nelson’s contractural stance in the summer of 2007, Ridder said he doesn’t recall writing them, that he always stayed positive, and added that there was no way he wrote any more than 10 total.

He also flat-out denied ever commenting on my blog.

As for the WW.net series of comments, Ridder also left open the possibility that someone else had commented and in some way made it appear as if he did. Which is very complicated.

It’s not a huge issue. Well, it’s not today. It’s strange. I want to bend over backwards to be fair to Ridder, and I will continue to do that.

The entire episode, however, is illustrative of this organization’s culture, I think, and temperament.

Under owner Chris Cohan and president Robert Rowell, the Warriors are a jumble of nerves and mood swings, all predicated on short-term goals (BUY TICKETS!) and one supreme, over-arching agenda: Make sure Cohan is protected at all costs.

An anonymous PR effort to post comments praising Cohan would coincide with that. Don’t know how that makes them a better basketball team, but that is not the point here. And never really is.

Warriors executive director of public relations Raymond Ridder acknowledged tonight that he was the author of an anonymous comment posted this afternoon to the WarriorsWorld.net fan site that defended Warriors management.

In the comment, signed as “Flunkster Dude,” Ridder wrote that he appreciated that afternoon’s season-ticket-holder conference call, conducted by GM Larry Riley, team president Robert Rowell and broadcaster Bob Fitzgerald.

As PR director, Ridder was heavily involved in setting up the call, in large part to stem the tide of recent negative publicity about the Warriors’ front-office decisions and the shedding of former executive VP Chris Mullin.

After the afternoon posting, there was an immediate uproar on the WW.net site when the site managers revealed that they had traced the comment’s IP address to the Warriors offices.

The managers passed along the information to me, and I sought confirmation or explanation from Ridder.

“It was 100% me,” Ridder said without hesitation when I reached him by phone.

Yes, I admit that I was stunned by his answer and I asked Ridder to repeat what he just said.

“It was 100% me. And I’ll take 100% responsibility, if anybody thinks I did anything wrong,” Ridder said. “It was completely on my own. I’ve never been told to do anything by anybody here. It was just me.

“It was nothing malicious at all. I just wanted to get the conversation going in a positive direction–I thought we had a good conference call, I had some good conversations with some season-ticket-holders, then I got to my office and I looked on the internet and all I saw was negative comments, complaints, nothing positive.